Blog — Stories of Joy Photography

To All Stories of Joy Photography families,

As concerns about the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 increases, I wanted to reach out today to update you on what we are doing to ensure the safety of our families and clients during this time.

Your safety is our top concern. We are carrying on with work as normal and plan move forward with all scheduled sessions. If a family feels safer postponing their session, that is totally understandable. Please just reach out to us and we will work with you to select a new date. Booking process for new sessions has been modified too to cancel easier if there are trip interruptions. Let’s be smart and safe!

Your health comes first. At all of our sessions, we will keep a social distance and provide hand sanitizer for both ourselves and everyone in your family during the session. We will also be ensuring that our equipment is sanitized after each session. If you or your family become ill prior to our session, please contact us to reschedule. If myself, Abby or anyone in our family becomes ill, we will reach out to you immediately and let you know.

This is a difficult time for all of us and please know that we care about you and your family. Our families are always our top priority in our business, as you are what make it possible to do what we love.

We will continue to monitor the latest information, including recommendations from the CDC and the World Health Organization, and will make further adjustments as necessary. The heath and well-being of our customers, their families and our community will always be our top priority.

With love,

Sennu

In 2010 I started writing a Year In Review post, and would publish it on our family travel blog. That blog is no longer active, but I really loved reflecting back on our year, so I decided to continue the tradition here on my photography blog. You can read here year 2018 and 2017.

JANUARY

We started the New Year in Rangeley, Maine, with extended family, and when we did return to Florida we brought my mom with us. My husband Scott and I celebrated 25 years of marriage, and Scott turned 50. Scott has been also working on building an airplane on his spare time. I took a trip to New Mexico for a photography reunion and had a wonderful time with about twenty photographer friends learning and having fun together. My mom flew to California to see my sister.

Where kids are at:
Daniel is working on his commercial pilot license in Florida.
Sarah had been in Finland last semester and came to Maine for Christmas and returned home with us to Florida.
Andrew is at Florida Tech working on his aero space engineering degree.
Thomas is studying in Virginia at Patrick Henry College and working for HSLDA.
Abby is in homeschool middle school, and working very independently.
Mae is in homeschool co-op in Florida, in the middle of Kindergarten.

FEBRUARY

We took a family trip to Westgate River Ranch where I rode a horse for the first time in my life! It was a fun little trip. I was busy with many family photo sessions and a wedding to photograph in West Palm Beach. My mom came back from California, and we all traveled back to Maine together for Spring Break.

MARCH

Maine was SO COLD!!!! My mom flew back to Finland, and we returned to Florida earlier than expected, because it was SO COLD! Abby turned 13 - we have a teenager in the house again! We took a few trips to Disney in March. Abby and I photographed STEAMFEST for Mae’s school.

APRIL

April was a busy month in Florida with many photo sessions and celebrating Easter with friends. Sarah had wisdom teeth surgery. Mae and Abby have been taking horseback riding lessons and Mae has taken art classes at her homeschool co-op.

MAY

May was insane!!! Scott and I went to Miami for Storytellers Photo Conference, and to Orlando for FPEA homeschool conference. We had a homeschool field trip to Seaworld. We also squeezed a few trips to Disney, and Mae had her first Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique experience! We celebrated her sixth birthday early. Mae graduated from Kindergarten! Daniel took me on my first flight with him to Okeechobee on Mother’s Day. Andrew started his summer job at Velocity. Thomas came home from Virginia for a few days before starting his job at HSLDA in VA. Sarah was fundraising for her trip to China, and Abby finished 7th grade.

JUNE

Mae turned 6! She had her first Cooking and Art Camp with Mrs. Matthews, and she loved it! After camp we traveled back to Maine to get our house ready for summer rentals. No big kids helping this time, but we did get Grandma and Grandpa to visit, as well as friends from New Hampshire. At the end of the month Abby and Scott returned to Florida, Mae and I to NH for a night.

JULY

Sarah flew to China for a two week camp with Bring Me Hope, and from there to Thailand to stay with friends of ours and help with the school and orphanage they are involved with. Mae and I arrived in Finland. We had several wonderful photo sessions, including photographing my nephew’s baby girl. And really special time with my mom and extended family. One highlight was our trip to Kylmapihlaja Island and staying a night in the lighthouse. My sister and her kids flew to Finland at the end of the month and our visits overlapped a bit, before Mae and I flew back to Boston, stayed in NH for a night, and drove to Maine.
Scott and Daniel flew to OshKosh, WI for a week. Abby got a cat and named him Oliver.

AUGUST

Abby, Oliver (the cat), Daniel and Andrew drove to Virginia, picked up Thomas and drove to Maine for a week or so. Our Maine house was rented one week, so Thomas, Abby, Mae and I spent a week in Alton Bay, New Hampshire as Scott went back to Florida. More extended family arrived to Maine, and at the end of the month my mom came back, and my sister and her kids flew here from Finland on their way to California. Rowena Meadows came to do a Day In The Life Session with us at the end of August. We stressed about Hurricane Dorian and the boys had to evacuate our Florida home. So thankful we didn’t have any damage.

SEPTEMBER

September was a great month in Rangeley, Maine! The weather was perfect and we did almost daily hikes and adventures with our California cousins. Dear friends came to visit from New Hampshire and Florida. At the end of the month Scott had a violent bout with kidney stones (we have horror stories of driving to the hospital in pouring rain on unfinished roads in the middle of the night under the influence of Melatonin).

OCTOBER

October was another full month for us. We started in Maine, taking little trips to see Sugarloaf, Smalls Falls, Searsport, eating lobster and enjoying the gorgeous Fall foliage. Our long stay in New England came to a close, and we drove through Springfield, MA to Cross River, NY where Abby and I photographed a beautiful wedding. From there we drove to Hershey, PA where I had a great Day In The Life Session with a wonderful family. From PA we traveled to Virginia to see our son Thomas, and drove to Vero Beach just in time to do school pictures at Mae’s homeschool co-op.
Mae got a new little room because Sarah came back from China, Thailand, Finland and Israel.

NOVEMBER

In November we took Mae to cleft clinic in Hollywood, FL, and we now have a plan to go forth. 2020 will bring surgeries for our little girl. Her speech has become a lot clearer, which is a huge milestone for her. First wiggly teeth, too! Many family photo sessions for families getting together for Thanksgiving or to get a Christmas card photo.
For Thanksgiving we had old friends come for the day from Wisconsin, and it was just a perfect day.
One new worry - my mom’s heart troubles, and multiple visits to hospital. We had to cancel her trip back to USA for Christmas.

DECEMBER

We spent half of December in Florida, and then packed up and came back to Maine for the holidays. All the big kids came too, and Sarah’s friend Timothy. My sister’s family traveled here from California, and Grandma and Grandpa arrived on Christmas Day. Our quadruplets turned 21, we celebrated Abby’s adoption day and my birthday, and truly had a wonderful Christmas. All the kids have been loving the snow and doing a lot of ice skating, sledding and snowball fights, along good food, baking, games, books, fires and simply being together.

My heart is thankful.

And I am so thankful to each person who has supported our family and my little business this year. Thank you for all the photo sessions, likes and comments, shares and encouragement. When I look back this last decade, it has been so good. Many changes - some extremely hard - but in all, the Lord’s presence and guidance has been very evident. God is good. All the time.

I wish each of you a wonderful New Year, and may you grow closer to your Creator and to all the loved ones in your circles.